UNVNews #89 September
2000
The
United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) has been asked
by the UN Secretary-General to take the lead in bringing
together a coalition of partners to launch the United
Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a
volunteer initiative to help bridge the digital divide
between nations of the North and South. Since it was
announced in April in the Secretary-General's Millennium
Report, UNV has met with information technology and
development experts to formulate plans. UNV Executive
Coordinator Sharon Capeling-Alakija elaborated on UNITeS
and new technologies in an interview with Richard Nyberg.
What is UNITeS?
UNITeS is both about
volunteering and the new information and communication
technologies. It will allow computer- and Internet-savvy
volunteers from the North and the South to get involved in
building human capacity to make practical use of these
technologies while helping to amplify and accelerate
development processes.
What does UNV have to
offer the UNITeS initiative?
UNV has a tremendous amount to
offer in terms of its own infrastructure and its network of
partners around the world, including 134 UNDP Offices in the
developing world where these UNITeS volunteers will be
working. We have experience in the recruitment, selection
and rapid deployment of volunteers from anywhere to
everywhere. Over the years we have deployed well over 20,000
United Nations Volunteers from 150 countries to serve in
about 145 other countries. This global placement of
volunteers requires skills. It is a very labour-intensive
type of work and UNV has built up this capacity over the
past 30 years. We have been able to respond to the changing
environment in developing countries and that has enabled us
to remain relevant by bringing in new mechanisms such as
short-term volunteers, national volunteers, corporate
volunteers and volunteers working in humanitarian and
electoral processes. We ourselves apply information and
communication technology (ICT) in all aspects of our
operations. A significant percentage of our recruitment and
promotion is done through the Internet. So it seems to me
that we are the obvious place to house UNITeS -- UNV can
become a platform on which UNITeS can rest.
Who are the main partners
in UNITeS?
We are looking for partners
from networks that already exist, be it NetCorps Canada, or
the global Association for Progressive Communication (APC),
or private sector networks such as the Confederation of
Indian Industry. Of course, we have our partner
volunteer-sending organizations such as the US Peace Corps,
VSO in the UK, APSO in Ireland, AVI in Australia and JOCV in
Japan. We are also looking for new partnerships in the
private sector. We are already working with Cisco Systems in
managing the Netaid.org online volunteering facility, and
they have just announced a new training initiative with UNV,
UNDP, the Peace Corps and UNITeS. We see great potential for
corporate volunteering, where companies release employees to
serve as a short-term UNITeS volunteer in a developing
country for a three-week or three-month assignment.
Who will finance this
initiative?
UNV knows very clearly what
volunteers cost because we work with that on a daily basis.
We see ourselves building on our volunteer management
infrastructure rather than having to have to start from zero
and spend the next year creating a new organization. The
money will come from governments and foundations and
hopefully the private sector. The private sector is at the
cutting edge of ICT, and it is there that a real
understanding of the potential of these technologies to help
bridge the economic divide resides. The private sector can
generate new sources of financing for development. Luckily,
there is a growing understanding that a world that is
economically and socially divided is a dangerous world for
everybody, and certainly not good for doing business.
Everybody has a stake in social cohesion and economic
stability that can lead to human development.
The year 2000 seems to be
the year of the "digital divide". Why it has gone to the
top of the international development agenda?
The new information and
communications technologies have begun to change
fundamentally not only what we do but how we do it. It has
kind of crept up on us, and now the alarm bells have started
to go off amongst those of us who are already working in
international development and already dealing with the
tremendous divide between men and women, between rich and
poor, between the industrialized world and the developing
world. These new technologies have so much potential to be
harnessed to address development issues. The UNDP Human
Development Report of 1999 also played a significant role in
raising awareness about the issue of globalization and,
together with globalization, one of the driving mechanisms
of globalization -- the Internet.
Has ICT become the latest
fad in development?
I've been working in
development for over 25 years and I'm fully aware that
people are constantly looking for quick fixes and easy
answers. Microcredit is part of the answer. Gender equity is
part of the answer. Clean water supply is part of the
answer. But none of these things is going to be the final
answer for the developing world. I think there is some
hubris about ICT right now. ICT is not, to use Clifford
Stoll's phrase, 'utopia on a stick'. As we take on board
this use of information and communication technologies, we
must be sure to apply them to produce desirable development
results. UNITeS is about development. Technology is a means
to an end, and not the end in and of itself.